Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Join us on our quest for the extraordinary!
Sam McKee (@polymath_sam) has 9 university qualifications across 4 subjects including doctorates in history and philosophy of science and molecular biology. He researches both at two British universities and contributes to both space science and cancer research. Meet fellow polymaths and discipline leaders working on the frontiers of research from all over the world. Be inspired to pursue knowledge and drive the world forwards.
Watch and share interviews with professors, lecturers, researchers, engineers, scientists and astronauts, right here! We talk to the most extraordinary people working on the frontiers for humanity, driving research forwards and changing the world that we live in. We dive deep with thinkers, academics and true icons - many of whom you won't yet have heard of.
Listen to us here and on podcast whilst you drive, exercise, do chores, and be inspired to pursue extraordinary in your own life.
www.sam-mckee.co.uk
Polymath World (00:03.068)
It is such a pleasure today to be here with Professor Peter Atkins, who I have long admired and it's wonderful to have you join us to talk about your career, your amazing work and talk some chemistry as well. How are doing today?
Peter (00:19.882)
alright, I think that's overselling me, but there we are.
Polymath World (00:23.83)
Yes, I know, but you've been quite understated. I had the pleasure of working with you in person back in November when you very kindly came to our town and had a very interesting chat with Keith Fox about science, religion and the future. And it's real pleasure to catch up with you again. What are you doing these days at Oxford in terms of chemistry? Are you still involved in research and teaching at all?
Peter (00:54.254)
Well, I retired in 2007, so that was ages ago, and since then I have continued to write, and I'm still writing, and that's what I do every day, and it seems all day.
Polymath World (01:15.926)
Well, I get the sense it's something you particularly enjoy. Are you still engaging mostly in textbooks and the teaching of chemistry or is it more popular writing?
Peter (01:26.592)
At the moment it's textbooks, so I've got three on the go at the moment. I can't say what they are yet, but they are a full-time occupation. I find it invigorating, a pleasant way of passing the time. Writing is always an encouragement to learn.
both to learn what one's writing about and how to write about what one is writing about. And the textbooks just need to be kept up to date because the subject evolves not very much but enough to take into account the audience.
evolves much more quickly than the topic because students come with different attitudes and different abilities and one has to try to match presentations to their ability to absorb and their ability to take pleasure from learning.
And also the technologies of education and authorship are constantly changing. So I have to keep up to date with the way that books are prepared, how illustrations are done, how calculations are done, things like that. it's a constantly...
fluid environment that one is writing in.
Polymath World (03:22.29)
I imagine that's an immense challenge because science never stands still. mean, there are certain factors, I'm sure, in chemistry as with physics where there are some things that won't change and they're not about to change and there's no scientific revolution on the horizon that's going to overthrow the laws of chemistry. But science is always on the move and...
Peter (03:45.208)
Yeah, but it depends on which science you're talking about. My textbooks are mostly in the regional physical chemistry, which is the interface between chemistry and physics.
It's where chemistry takes its principles from. And its principles really lie in quantum mechanics and in thermodynamics, with a smattering of chemical kinetics, the rates of reactions and so on. But the kind of thermodynamics and quantum mechanics that chemistry draws on really haven't changed very much
since the 1930s. So it isn't, you I'm not under the same pressure to evolve, to keep up to date with the principles.
It's when you come to applications, different types of spectroscopy and so on, different types of colorimetry that change takes place. But those are very much on the margin of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics. So basically, fundamentally, I have quite an easy time.
Polymath World (05:10.742)
I'm sure you make it easy, Professor. How long have you been at Oxford, involved at Oxford?
Peter (05:18.638)
I was appointed in 1963 and told to go away for a year to grow up. So I went to UCLA to do the growing up at the University of California Los Angeles for a year and then came back into my first and only job here.
in 1964 and I stayed in Oxford doing effectively the same job or at least more or less the same title for 40 years. So I did not personally progress.
Polymath World (06:06.976)
Well, yeah, some people would look at that as a job well done, Professor, when you, when you, over 60 years in the same place and they say there's no such thing as a job for life anymore. When did you write your first book?
Peter (06:16.897)
Yeah, right.
Peter (06:23.637)
1967. Do I mean that? No, I don't mean that. It was published in 1967, a little bit before. I was writing it while I was doing my postdoc in UCLA. It was in fact a book that worked up my PhD thesis into a monograph.
and I wrote it together with my then supervisor, Lester Martin Simmons. And so that was the first book. The first textbook was Molecular Quantum Mechanics, the first edition of which was published in 1970, and I did that on my own.
Polymath World (07:15.52)
Right. Could you let's get a bit more into your background. I'd love to know how you fell in love with chemistry and how you knew that it was going to be your future and what you wanted to commit your life to, to researching and teaching.
Peter (07:30.402)
Well, I think those evolved, but I think I can trace it back to my high school days, grammar school. was a Dr. Chalunath's grammar school in Hammersham, in Buckinghamshire, where really we did the classic triumvirate of chemistry, physics, biology.
Physics, I think I was finding too mathematical for my taste at the time. Biology, I think I was finding too embarrassing because things were having sex all the time, which for a pubescent youth, that was not something I really felt comfortable with. And so that left something in the middle.
Polymath World (08:17.279)
terrible isn't it?
Peter (08:26.552)
chemistry, which was neither embarrassing nor too mathematical. And I think I found myself in my correct intellectual milieu at the time. And then I decided really that chemistry was something I wanted to pursue. There is a kind of side
track to this account because I dropped out of school at 15. In those days, I'm good. I'm speaking of hundreds of years ago basically. And I went to work for Monsanto Chemicals as a lab assistant for two years. And they increasingly, I think, got fed up with me and encouraged me to go back.
find a way of going back into the university system. by a sequence of lucky chances and judgments made by people to whom I'm eternally grateful, the University of Leicester sort of drew me back into the system. And I went to Leicester to read chemistry.
in 1958 and found it to my liking. Stayed on to do a PhD with a person I mentioned a few moments ago, Martin Simmons. Found that increasingly to my liking. And once you get trapped into the university academic life
no other life is really very appealing because it gives you intellectual freedom. At they did in those days. It's a little horrid these days. for example, when I reflect on my career, I really have never had a boss to tell me what to do except when I was that lab assistant from Monsanto.
Peter (10:53.641)
I've been autonomous throughout my career. And although the form of the job at Oxford didn't change, I was always Tutor in Physical Chemistry at Lincoln College, which I found very moulding, rather not mouldy, moulding.
experience and for the University of University of Leicester in physical chemistry later reprogrammed to professor of physical chemistry but throughout I was my own master effectively and that in a sense looking back was enormously valuable as a
way of spending one's career. Who wants a boss after all?
Polymath World (11:55.753)
Yes, absolutely. So was there a particular moment when you were a child that chemistry really became an attraction or do you put most of it down to having an excellent teacher and landing in a situation in Leicester where you were really switched on by the environment?
Peter (12:16.622)
Well, I have to admit that I just had a chemistry set when I was, you know, a child. And so, I presume, you know, it was full of all sorts of poisons and I suppose it's totally illegal now. But it was a great stimulus to messing around with things that changed colour and stank and got stuck on everything.
Polymath World (12:35.734)
I imagine so.
Peter (12:46.894)
So that must have been the germ of my interest in the subject. But my reflection on the unconscious wisdom of choosing chemistry is that, as people say, it is the central science. And as such, it puts you right in the middle of the sciences. And so
As you progress as a chemist you find yourself reaching
reaching down into physics for explanations. You find yourself reaching out into biology and material science for applications. And you find yourself having to master mathematics in order to qualitative ideas quantitative to give them enough spine to stand up.
to experimental checking. And so it's a very valuable central place in the scientific universe to inhabit.
Polymath World (14:10.548)
Yeah, that's absolutely wonderful. I love the way you've put that. It must have been a really interesting time, the second half of the 20th century, being in chemistry, particularly somewhere like Oxford. I mean, I can speak only mostly for biochemistry, but you you've got the birth of molecular biology. Obviously a lot is going on with quantum physics as well, and it's being applied more broadly. What was it like working at Oxford?
in research and in teaching in chemistry at that time.
Peter (14:45.294)
Not invigorating. I mean it's one of the biggest chemistry departments in the world. know, with massive schools of physical chemistry, inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, material science. It's huge.
Even if you just limit that to the classical chemistry departments, physical, inorganic and organic, it's got hundreds of deep hill students and so on, hundreds of faculty basically. It's enormous. And the advantage of being at a honeypot like Oxford is that there's a constant stream of visitors passing through, both
casually and for extended periods. So it was an intellectually vigorous place to be. And not only in the sciences, because of the collegiate structure of the University, it means that when you're having dinner at night...
in the evening after having done, I'd say, a couple of hours of tutoring. Very bright, extremely bright, embarrassingly bright undergraduates, lot of the time. And then you find yourself in the company with historians, poets, musicians, and having that kind of breadth of intellectual interaction.
outside the demands of the yet very exciting chemistry development.
Polymath World (16:43.7)
Yeah, gosh, I can only imagine the things you must have been able to see and be around. Very exciting time. Did you get to supervise a lot of interesting projects? I know you were committed to teaching and writing a great deal, but did you have many students under your care in that time?
Peter (17:00.014)
Well, divide that into college and university. As a college tutor, I was responsible for, let me say, we took six undergraduates a year. So we saw them, those six, through their entire course, three years of undergraduate and one year of...
of project work basically. But basically we were looking at after those undergraduate years, seeing them for an hour a week, seeing them outside the University in various ways, very intimate kind of interaction. And I'm still good friends with some of my pupils from my very first years.
in the 1960s. They've all retired by now, of course, but it's quite extraordinary. We got to know them very well, things, and certainly they've stayed in touch. Now, in the university, of course, one's responsibility is the one's graduate students.
Polymath World (17:57.27)
Wow.
Polymath World (18:01.535)
Yeah.
Polymath World (18:12.067)
I'm sorry, ahead.
Peter (18:26.346)
rather than people studying for what we call DPhil, a PhD in common language. And in the early days of my tenure I did have quite a substantial group with about ten graduate students reading towards their DPhil. But when I found
in round about 1980 that my books were demanding so much of my attention I decided it was improper to take on those young minds and not give them my full attention. So in essence I closed down my research group and switched to full-time.
writing, but doing my lectures and things like that and certainly continuing my college duties.
Polymath World (19:29.204)
Yeah, I met a gentleman in passing back in January who had been a student of yours and he was just coming up to retirement age and just in passing I found out that he did chemistry at Oxford and I said, was Peter Atkins your professor? said, yes, Peter Atkins was my professor, remember it well. So yeah, what a legacy you've had over these years.
Just moving on, one of the things I really love about you is you've been a champion of science and rationality and reason for your whole life. We're at an interesting point in history at the moment where on the one hand, science is really moving forward at such a rapid rate and it's so exciting thinking about the future. And on the other hand, we've got sort of quite a distrust in science and authority
in the aftermath of the pandemic. Why should people still study science and particularly chemistry and could you speak into what you're excited about with the future?
Peter (20:38.67)
Well, you mentioned the pandemic. If there hadn't been the science that was being done then, most people who were complaining about science would be dead.
Polymath World (20:50.613)
Yes.
Peter (20:53.56)
So, don't knock science. Science enables the modern world. I know it has...
consequences that are undesirable. There's a commonplace undesirabilities like environmental pollution, weaponry. But think of what science has done to enable us to have the lives we do. Travel.
transformed, communication transformed, lives not only
ameliorated but prolonged. Agriculture transformed. It's effectively beyond measure. And all this is done because people gradually realized that thinking for themselves.
But relating that understanding to observations that could be made and shared with others worked. I often think, and maybe I've said it, that science really began in about 1492 with the discovery of America. Not because of America.
Peter (22:46.976)
and the contribution of its science. But suddenly there was this extraordinary discovery of something that hadn't been mentioned in any holy book. You don't find America mentioned in the Bible. You don't find America mentioned in the Quran. So here was something that is not in the books. Something that is there to be explored.
that people didn't know about. And in a sense, that's what science is all about. It's going out there and exploring in a controlled way what there is out there. And there is of course a degree of authority in science because you don't want to rebuild.
reinvent the wheel every time. So you have to accept maybe that the wheel should be round in order to get them to work pretty well. So you accept certain things. But if you in due course find that that runs counter to experience, then you duck the idea and you move on to another idea. So science is all about getting it wrong.
but recognizes that it gets it wrong. Religion is all about getting it right and knowing that it's right. But science is all about getting it wrong, knowing that it's wrong, but repairing it. And really that's sort of the major difference between them. science is a force for good. It's a unifying cultural activity.
Polymath World (24:23.286)
You
Peter (24:45.996)
You don't have Japanese science. You don't have some American science. You have science. People say that music is the universal language. But science is much more universal than music. I mean, listening to some of the noise that passes for some foreign language, some foreign music. It's really, you know that.
It's pretty awful not getting on listening to that. But science, wherever it stems from, provided it is tested against experiment, tested against reality, you like, gradually thereby exposing what we mean by reality, I think it is a universal language. And such a simple thing. I mean, why did it take
Polymath World (25:17.204)
Ha ha ha.
Peter (25:43.586)
thousands and thousands of years for people to stumble upon the mode of doing science. That is to think about what you observe and to set your ideas about why things happen in a reticulation of other ideas. know, chemistry, you can't do biology without chemistry these days.
even more so since 1953. I mean, used to be nature walks and now biology is really molecular biology, which is just a fancy thing for chemistry. As I saying earlier on, being able to be in the centre of science in chemistry and draw on explanations and applications and quantifications.
Polymath World (26:16.597)
Yes.
Polymath World (26:25.62)
Yeah, absolutely.
Peter (26:43.47)
It's really a part of the scientific ethos to draw, to communicate universally.
Polymath World (26:57.194)
Yeah, just looking at the last decade of Nobel Prizes and looking at where we sit right now on the frontiers with artificial intelligence, spacefaring, robotics, genetic engineering. Is there anything in particular looking at the future that you're really excited about in terms of scientific breakthroughs?
Peter (27:23.66)
yeah, yes, I mean, I think there are only two big problems in science. Lots of little ones, like you're in cancer and things like that. But the really...
double whammy sciences. One is where it all came from and the other is how do we know in the sense that, let me gloss that, where it all came from I mean I think cosmology, cosmogenesis, the origin of this something out of nothing. How did it happen? Not why did it happen.
Why is never a proper question in science. But how did it happen? How did nothing suddenly tumble out and turn itself into what seems like not nothing? And so I think that's the big question. People are making sort of progress, string theory. People think that still might be a clue to the way forward, but it's got...
and related the quantum gravitation is still in the mud. scientists were meadering on, haven't given up. And what I meant by how we knew about it, I meant the nature of consciousness. So having got stuff out of nothing in the...
event of Cosmogenesis and that event having evolved into we thinking things, we lumps of intricate matter, sufficiently intricate to be aware of our own existence. Quite extraordinary that. To solve the question of consciousness and I think
Polymath World (29:36.832)
Yes.
Peter (29:43.758)
The two questions will have different types of answer. think this pure speculation now. Cosmogenesis will be a mathematical elucidation of what happened and we'll have a lot of trouble because our minds are built in the farmyard basically, so we have trouble in.
interpreting mathematical structures in terms of physical models. mean, our current quantum mechanics is difficult for us. Our brains are constructed to respond to snakes and tigers and animals and things. They're not taught the anatomy involved in the context of
overt quantum phenomena. That's why we find it so difficult to think about what entanglement means and superposition and all that sort of thing. But we can do the maths. No problem with the maths. So I suspect that in due course we'll have a mathematical theory of Cosmogenesis. Then when it comes to consciousness, the answer will be different. It won't be
an equation. It will be a model, a simulation. Whether that will be a simulation based on current models of computation. I don't know. Whether it will be essentially involved quantum mechanics. I don't know. Perhaps it will need a quantum computer.
to understand quantum mechanics. knows? So I think, and we're edging towards it, look at what we can do with computers these days. See, I don't even know if you're real, and maybe you don't know perhaps if I'm real.
Polymath World (31:58.978)
I noticed you talked about consciousness and the origin of consciousness and the origin of the universe. I just wondered if you had any thoughts on the origin of life as a chemist, maybe perhaps in the intersection of them.
Peter (32:09.28)
Well, yeah, that's pretty easy question really, even though it hasn't been solved. I mean, there's lots of ideas about how the inorganic flipped across into a pretty accurately self-recreating bit of matter. That's what life is.
And so you can see, put that way, it's not hard to see that it's moderately easy for it to happen. It's probably quite difficult for it to survive because all sorts of natural cataclysm could overwhelm early life. And it's even more...
problematical about how life can evolve to our level and whether it evolves further on of course is open to question given the fragility of both our environment and our societies.
And almost certainly we're not alone in this universe, but equally almost certainly other life forms are so far away that we will never have direct contact with them.
Polymath World (33:49.344)
But these are big questions, but you're quite hopeful that we could land on an answer in the coming decades.
Peter (33:54.766)
Oh yes, oh yes, I mean, there's another contrast between religion and science. I religion says that all the answers are beyond human comprehension. Don't even try to understand the Trinity. Don't even try to understand transubstantiation. Don't even try to understand life after death.
That's not to try because none of those things exist anyway. But at least it's denigrating human competence. Whereas science takes entirely the opposite view. It's out there to understand. Okay, limited brains we have, but nevertheless let's use them
to their full extent and let's not be thwarted in our aspiration to understand by naysayers, you know, people who denigrate science for their own often religious ends.
Polymath World (35:11.766)
It's so wonderful to have you here today and I really hope some of our students and those listening will be inspired. I just want to ask you a final question about, I mean you've mentioned your teacher who really helped you and encouraged you, but was there anyone else when you were young or early on in your career who really inspired you to pursue excellence in chemistry?
Peter (35:36.366)
Yes.
Funnily enough, yesterday, I don't know whether yesterday will mean anything to people in due course or see this, on May the 17th, 2025, to pin it down for future generations, I went to my alma mater, University of Leicester.
who were, they were celebrating the centenary of their chemistry department. And I, I had to give a talk which really was entitled What Master Chemistry Did For Me. So I'm edging towards answering your question. And I...
identified three or four people. Incidentally, was for me, having been nearly as old as the institution of centenary I was celebrating. But that's by the by. I identified several people and institutions, of course.
I identified the, what they were then called, personnel manager at Monsanto, who either to get rid of me or in recognition of something or other, urged me and encouraged me to go to university. So I would never have done that without him and I would not become what I did become.
Peter (37:37.218)
I have no idea what I would have become, but there we are. I would also put down a very important person in that sequence, the lecturer at Leicester, who decided, and I do know this from later conversations, to take a risk with me and offer me a place, even though my A-levels were beyond awful.
Polymath World (38:05.334)
Wow.
Peter (38:06.89)
and so it was she that was Florence Shaw. I think my PhD supervisor, Martin Simmons at Leicester, was also a very important developer of what I think I would say is my scientific insight.
and my other sides.
So those, I think, are the principles. I'd also say that my post-doctoral supervisor at UCLA, Dan Goebbelsen, was instrumental in setting me off on my career of theoretical chemistry. He had a very engaging way of thinking, which he was a physicist more than a chemist, and I think that's rubbed off on me.
And I suppose beyond them all my undergraduates and students who forced clarity out of obscurity.
Polymath World (39:25.256)
I love that. That's such a wonderful answer. It's been such a pleasure to be with you. I really hope that some of the students, young or old, who hear this are inspired to think about reigniting a fire in chemistry. And it's always a pleasure to talk to you, Professor.
Peter (39:40.632)
Sam, it's a pleasure to talk to you as well. Thank you very much.
Polymath World (39:42.07)
Thank you so much for joining us.
Peter (39:46.168)
Goodbye.